Thread by @Prolapsarian

THREAD: What evidence are the @EHRC hiding in their report about alleged antisemitism in the Labour Party? Or is the Equality and Human Rights Commission a kangaroo court?

Since August I have been trying to get the EHRC to disclose the evidence and information that it has

received in its investigation into alleged antisemitism in the Labour Party. It is due to publish its report this week, but it still will not reveal the evidence that it is basing its report on. Back in August I sent them this request under the Freedom of Information Act.

Unlike a normal court, the EHRC is allowed to determine whether an organisation is guilty of a crime without revealing the evidence it bases this decision on. It can pick and choose evidence for its report as it pleases. The entire process is completely opaque. It is very likely

that they will suppress much of the evidence that they received. But without knowing what they received we will never know what information they are suppressing. Here was their refusal to disclose the information and evidence.

As you can see, instead of trying to help with my

request they blocked it with big chunks of legalese. Which I guess is fine if you think that information should only be accessible to people with law degrees, and not normal people like the rest of us. We can imagine that they might not only be suppressing certain evidence they

received (such as that from radical pro-Corbyn Jews in the Labour Party), but might also be offering cover and discretion for those who attacked Corbyn, whether that be in the official Labour Party submission (which has never been published) or from right wing anti-Corbynite

Jewish organisations such as the Campaign Against Antisemitism and the Board of Deputies. Without the disclosure of evidence there really is no way to check the balance of what they say, or to work out if they are being straight or just playing politics. So I complained about

their refusal to disclose the evidence. I'm not a lawyer (I'm just a radical Jew who researches and writes about antisemitism). The very fact that I had to write an email like this to try to get disclosure from an institution that is going to offer summary judgment is crazy.

But of course they refused again. At this point I would just suggest that they are involved in a massive cover up operation, and are playing politics. There is really no other reason they would refuse the publication of this material unless they knew that people would come to

very different conclusions than what they are going to present. People should be very wary of institutions who operate in this way, with zero transparency, and should question all the conclusions they come to. I would recommend also

that people send similar Freedom of Information requests to all institutions who they think might have contributed evidence to this process. This is the only way we will get any clarity on what is taking place. And as for my complaint - well I've sent it on to the Information

Commissioners Office, where it will no doubt be kicked into the long grass. And I will be making a near-identical complaint FOIA request to the EHRC as soon as their report is published. And no doubt they will deny that too, because they never want us to know.

Addendum: Some will complain that this thread undermines trust in an institution that deals with racism, sexism, ageism, and other discrimination. Personally I think these are best dealt with democratically, and not by a regulatory body acting as the prosecution, judge, and jury.